A man who apparently swiped Frances McDormand’s Oscar trophy boasted about it on Facebook, claiming he won it for music, before being arrested on suspicion of felony grand theft.
Terry Bryant, 47, was being held on $20,000 bail for allegedly stealing the statue at the Governors Ball party soon after Sunday night’s 90th Academy Awards ceremony in Hollywood. A Los Angeles police department spokesperson said Bryant had a ticket for the event.
“Sup babies, look, my team got this tonight. Who wants to tell me congratulations?” Bryant, dressed in a tuxedo, said in a video posted on Facebook. “This is mine. We got it tonight, baby!”
Onlookers asked to touch the statuette and offered congratulations, apparently unaware the Oscar belonged to McDormand.
When Bryant yelled for directions to the party hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, the ceremony’s presenter, an unidentified bystander replied: “That’s your ticket to any party you want to go to.”
McDormand won the award for her performance as a grieving mother seeking justice for her murdered daughter in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri.
Her powerful acceptance speech demanding greater inclusion of women and marginalised groups in the film industry electrified the Dolby theatre audience.
She was celebrating at the ball when Bryant allegedly swiped the trophy from her table.
His performance as an Oscar winner did not last long.
A New York Times reporter, Cara Buckley, tweeted a photo of Bryant and said a photographer working for the chef Wolfgang Puck stopped him and retrieved the statuette.
Security at the Governors Ball are looking for this guy, who grabbed Frances McDormand’s Oscar and ran out with it. Wolfgang Puck’s photographer stopped him, got the Oscar back, and the guy disappeared back into the ball. Apparently Frances has said to let him go. #Oscars #Drama pic.twitter.com/5tlsx4Ulwt
— Cara Buckley (@caraNYT) March 5, 2018
“After some brief time apart, Frances and her Oscar were happily reunited. They celebrated the reunion with a double cheeseburger from In-N-Out Burger,” McDormand’s publicist, Simon Halls, said.
It is the second time McDormand has picked up the best actress award, having previously won the statuette in 1996 for her performance as an eccentric Minnesota cop in Fargo.
A telephone number for Bryant couldn’t immediately be located and it wasn’t clear if he had an attorney who could comment on his behalf.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences said in a statement: “Best Actress winner Frances McDormand and her Oscar were happily reunited after a brief separation at last night’s Governors Ball. The alleged thief was quickly apprehended by a photographer and members of our fast-acting Academy and security teams.”
